The Marriage Lie(92)

And then I see my husband down on his knee in that Kroger aisle, his face equal parts nervousness and hope, when he said those four little words I’d been waiting to hear. Will you marry me? I remember the joy that sparkled inside, the tears that fell down my smiling cheeks as I told him yes. Yes yes yes.

Can I really come clean? Can I really tell the police my husband is alive? That he’s a murderer?

I close my eyes. “I have no idea.”

The doorbell rings, heralding the arrival of dinner. “Think about it and let me know, okay?” Evan says, wrapping a palm around mine before he stands. “You do what you need to do. If I can’t be your lawyer, I’ll always be your friend.”





32

I settle the last from the tray of purple phlox into the soil at my mailbox and pat the dirt all around. It’s a glorious Sunday morning, and Atlanta’s spring has made a spectacular appearance. Bright sunshine, low humidity and flowers everywhere—in window boxes, lining the streets, in great pink and white bursts on dogwoods and cherry trees. The blooms blanket the city with a layer of yellow pollen, choking me with allergies as thick as my dread.

It’s day thirty-three, not that I’m counting, and still no sign of Will.

“There are more than twelve thousand surveillance cameras in this city, and that number keeps growing,” Detective Johnson said to me only a few days ago. “You can’t make it through a day here without being recorded somewhere.”

Her words were as much a promise as a warning. According to Liberty Airlines and the Georgia Department of Public Health, William Matthew Griffith is dead. According to Detective Johnson and the Atlanta Police Department, however, the matter isn’t so clear. Corban’s killer has not been found. Will’s DNA has not been pulled from the wreckage, either.

But since there’s a death certificate, there were a flurry of letters going back and forth between the insurance companies and Evan’s firm, and last week he handed me a trio of checks with long lines of zeros. I did as Evan advised and deposited them into an interest-bearing account until we know for sure—which, of course, I already do.

But as of today, I’m the only one.

Will covered his tracks well. The police couldn’t trace any of the phone numbers back to him. Not from my cell, and not from Corban’s. They couldn’t find a single file on the recovered computer to implicate Will in the embezzlement. The only reason they have to suspect he’s alive at all is me—because I told Detective Johnson the truth. That morning I made my statement was like a cleanse, flushing out all the toxins. I told her everything, starting the morning of the crash. She didn’t seem surprised, but until she finds hard evidence either way—alive or dead—she said it’s best not to touch a cent of the money.

“Hey, Iris,” my neighbor Celeste calls from across the street. She gestures to the flowers I’ve planted to replace the bushes the police and press flattened. “Looks pretty.”

I brush off my hands and push to a stand. “Thanks. Just trying to spruce things up before the place goes on the market tomorrow.”

As I say the words, a sharp pain hits me in the center of the chest. Despite the millions gathering dust in a bank account, I’m selling the house. I can’t afford the mortgage on my own, and my credit cards are already maxed out paying for the care of Will’s father. I’ve moved him from that horrid facility to a private memory care center, a beautiful building with sunny rooms and a cheerful staff. The monthly bills are killing me, and though Evan assures me money won’t be a problem by the time he’s done with Liberty Air—Tiffany’s story checked out, and she even produced a few damning photographs of the bachelor party in full swing to back it up—the investigation will take months or even years to sort through. My broker assures me there’s no better time to sell than now—“It’s springtime in a booming real estate market, Iris. You’re going to get top dollar”—and it makes me want to shake her.

I’m not selling the house for the profit, you idiot. I’m selling it because I need the cash.

I tell myself it’s just a house, an inconsequential and inanimate thing, and losing it can’t erase the memories I made here, but it still stings. Despite my half-empty bed, despite the blood that was shed here, I don’t want to leave. Only a month ago, Will and I were trying to fill this place with babies.

“Oh, no. You’re moving?” Celeste makes a too bad face, and her eyes dart around like goldfish. I can practically hear her thinking: Whatever will we talk about once you’re gone?

I nod. “This place is too big for just me.”

Another pang, just as sharp as the first. That morning of the crash, I wanted so badly to be pregnant, and I was, officially, for almost a week. Turns out I was a statistic, one of the one in ten pregnancies that ends in early miscarriage, and the crying jag lasted almost as long. I tell myself it’s better this way, that a baby would have united Will and me, inextricably and forever, in a bond much more complicated than marriage. But it still hurts to think about what could have been.

Celeste gives me a bright smile. “We’ll sure miss having you around.”

I’ll bet. The press seems to have finally lost interest in my story, but my neighbors haven’t. They ring my doorbell all day long, popping by with casseroles and lasagnas, peppering me with questions about That Night, hoping I’ll share a gory detail or two that they haven’t already heard on the news. My fifteen minutes of fame have made me the most popular resident in all of Inman Park.